Recently, there is a demand for providing a compact information device such as a mobile phone with a function of inputting characters in order to generate email and the like. In the mobile phone, it is preferable to reduce the number of buttons provided therein.
As a conventional art, a character input device is known in which a plurality of character list display means for each displaying a plurality of pieces of character information consisting of characters of a specific character type are displayed on display means, and when an arbitrary character in the character list display means is designated by designating means, character type displaying means for displaying a character of at least one character type corresponding to the designated character is displayed. When a character of an arbitrary character type within the character type display means is designated by the designating means and when the designating means is released therefrom, the character information corresponding to the character type of the character that was being displayed at the position from which the designating means had been released is displayed on the character list display means.
With the conventional character input device, however, the character list needs to be displayed, which occupies a large display area. This poses a problem that the display area is restricted due to input of a character.